BRATTLEBORO — The outside temperature has dropped significantly in the last two weeks, but it’s still hot in the Samuel Elliot High Rise, and it’s not just a thermometer reading.

“I have lived here for 15 years and for 14 of those years I have had an in-window air-conditioning unit,” said Judith Ressler.

Recently, the Brattleboro Housing Partnership, which owns and manages the 62-unit apartment building on Elliot Street, removed the in-window units.

“They want us to get floor models,” said Ressler.

“It’s unfair,” said Elizabeth Snyder, who has collected a petition with 34 signatures requesting the return of their in-window units. “We had a meeting eight months ago and we were told floor units cost $100 but they’re anywhere between $260 and $450 each.”

Snyder and Ressler said they were told the reason the units had to be removed was because they were dripping and causing damage to lower apartments. They were also told they had no choice when maintenance workers came around and removed the in-window units.

I attended a zoning board meetng several years ago, and noted that a women patiently awaited her turn to get permission to REMOVE a window air conditioner from a window in the BACK of her home. The chair just shook his head and wondered if the zoning regulations had gone too far. I’m surptised the the big guys are picking on the folks down in Brattleboro. .

More of our wonderful anal bureaucracy telling us Americans what we can and cannot do and taking freedom away from us . These residents I presume pay rent, so why shouldn’t they have been involved in the decision-making regarding their air conditioners? Perhaps they should sue the rental group to force them to put central air conditioning in the entire building? That should be doable. Or perhaps put new window units in as replacements? All it will take is for one senior to die from the heat in an apartment, and there will be a big lawsuit, and there should be. I keep wondering why people can’t just work together reasonably to solve problems reasonably.